Guide: Exporting Zones + Textures

[OrisonSeven]

Let me start once more by thanking you!!!!! and everyone whos effort came to amount to the ability to do all of this.

As for texturing right now, im not so worried about exporting trees as much as I really need to figure out how to makes trees such that 2 sided texturing works. As of right now, we actually double the polys for the trees leaves and then invert the normals so that in essence we end up with two polys taking up the same space just facing away from one another. This does work, but as I have said before, the poly count is doubled when it shouldnt need to be.

The eventaul goal is both to create a whole new game, everything, and i mean everything, along with keeping/modifying the exhisting content to make it our own. We hope to bring back the old feel of adventuring through the lands without haveing a map to tell you where everything is, as well as making it more like you "are" the character exploring the world.

Thanks again.

[Tabidzukare]

Hey Orison,

You know I got goosebumps a little bit when you mentioned your idea and I couldn't help but throwing this out there. You know Sakrateri is trying to do almost the same exact thing as you.. tired of redesigning an 'emulator' he's trying to recreate the old game using the torque engine and some other things.. you should get in touch.. also, if you all do get in touch and think about merging your projects (even if you don't...) let me know!!

I would love to help with what I can do well at which is namely content / quest / story writing. I'm a history/lore guy and seeing what you've been doing with the size and scale of those trees.. *whistle..* I'm impressed. Let me know if you ever need any content people / other help. You'll have another member!

Kindest Regards~~

[OrisonSeven]

Hey Tabidzukare,
The idea of merging projects would be pretty cool using the torque engine. As of right now we are still developing alot of content. Using the eq engine with a working server allows us to get a feel for the run of the terrain. I have yet to get in touch with him yet, but, if he is looking at these posts and messages, by all means chime in and leave some imput Sak.

As for content, quests, lore and such, we would love the extra help once we get a little more developed. We are still in the process our selves of developing the plot and actual feel of what we want. As we get more out there, we would be more then happy to have you join us.

After Ferringor, I believe we will be creating an open planes/desert zone, as well as a large number of others already stated for creation. Personally, I have about 5 notebooks as of now that have sketches, notes, and other content based ideas that still need to be both created/textured as well as fine tuned to the eventual goal of a brand new world to explore.

We also plan to have a whole new array of weapon models that will be replacing the old ones. We plan to have both the weapon and the image of the weapon match (not hard at all) but also have the name correspond to the look and feel. For instance, rusty weapons, though basically junk, look like most other basic weapons. We currently have a new set of rusty specific textures and some models that will make rusty weapons... well... rusty. This is both a small and huge undertaking as it means increasing the overall number of possible item models drastically.

The crafting system also needs some revamping as it really lacks in comparison to that of other games as well as to what it "could" be. One of our ideas is to actually make it so that you can create a weapon to look how u want based around hilt blade and so on. By this I mean that we would create a large number of blades, hilts, etc. that when placed within the forge with the proper skill and the right ingrediants could make whatever look you want. This would also increase the range of looks for weapons as well meaning we would have to precreate all the combinations and load them in, which if u think about it, having 5 blades and 6 hilts alone means 30 weapon types and if that is just longswords, imagine now adding shortswords, hammers, 2handed swords, axes, 2 handed axes, staffs, and clubs to start. That would mean 30 x 8 = 240 weapon models for simply crafted weapons. This is where the numbers begin to get crazy. We have ideas that go far beyond this to include weapon types that are custom to mobs around the world as well.

On another note, armor, which we had though would only be a single choice has been taken into consideration in terms of a new idea on how to make many variants. If we could have multiple textures for a single armor type, say plate, which i believe is possible, then we could simply "stack" meshes ontop of one another and simply give all the meshes we didnt want showing an alpha making them invisable so that they would appear not there when infact there would be like 4 meshes interwoven. This then makes it possible to have different armor feels too. (This part is pretty far out there as we are still trying to see is this is possible, tho i know for a fact that having seperate meshes isnt possible as the engine limits the total to i believe 4 (cloth, leather, chain, and plate) with the exception of monk races with have an additional 1 for the monks.

So, as you can see we do have alot on our proverbial plate right now!!!! which is always fun as once we get a "portion" meaning something beyond just ideas, that it should be much easier to see what we are heading towards.

[Tabidzukare]

Hi Orison,

Sounds excellent, I think you've got a lot of great ideas and it would be great to see collaboration with Sak. When you get to the point of needing content help you know how to reach me, I won't be posting much on the boards for a while since I'm studying the code and will be for - quite some time.

Kindest Regards~~

[toddfx]

Yes that's right i've brought it back from the dead!

I'm currently having fun playing with EQ zones in 3D Studio Max, and using VRay to render them up with some nice lighting and atmospheric effects. Check out some of my renders over at Project1999 forums if you like: http://www.project1999.org/forums/sh...ad.php?t=18950

HOWEVER up until this point I have been capturing my data in-game using the utility 3D Ripper DX. It only allows me to capture small sections at a time, so I'm hoping to use this Model Viewer to import ENTIRE zones at once which will allow me to do 3D camera flythroughs!

Anyway, the problem I am having here is that the Model Viewer seems to display zones not as a whole, but as individual zone meshes stacked together at 0,0 coordinates like so: http://toddkumpf.com/images/renders/...na-example.jpg

This obviously is a problem. Am I missing something, or is this just how it is?

Also, when I import the .POV file, it doesn't appear that any textures are applied to the models. Sure they are UV'd and sure you can export the BMPs/DDSs separately from Model Viewer, but is the only option to manually apply them back onto the model in Max?

Thanks so much, guys! This will be a real life-saver once I get it hammered out!

[Akkadius]

Originally Posted by toddfx

Yes that's right i've brought it back from the dead!

I'm currently having fun playing with EQ zones in 3D Studio Max, and using VRay to render them up with some nice lighting and atmospheric effects. Check out some of my renders over at Project1999 forums if you like: http://www.project1999.org/forums/sh...ad.php?t=18950

HOWEVER up until this point I have been capturing my data in-game using the utility 3D Ripper DX. It only allows me to capture small sections at a time, so I'm hoping to use this Model Viewer to import ENTIRE zones at once which will allow me to do 3D camera flythroughs!

Anyway, the problem I am having here is that the Model Viewer seems to display zones not as a whole, but as individual zone meshes stacked together at 0,0 coordinates like so: http://toddkumpf.com/images/renders/...na-example.jpg

This obviously is a problem. Am I missing something, or is this just how it is?

Also, when I import the .POV file, it doesn't appear that any textures are applied to the models. Sure they are UV'd and sure you can export the BMPs/DDSs separately from Model Viewer, but is the only option to manually apply them back onto the model in Max?

Thanks so much, guys! This will be a real life-saver once I get it hammered out!

I just wanted to say, those looked amazing. I'd be surprised to see if you can get them actually working as direct replacements.

EDIT: I think it was Sakraateri or something to that extent that would be a good person to talk to. They use Open Zone to import/export alot of that stuff, maybe even a user by the name of Packet. Maybe even Windcatcher, but these are all users that are not here very often at all.

[Shadows91]

Strip AZone2 (the source code is included in eqemu's svn package) for zone file parsing.

As an example, I wrote a small zone viewer. you can find the source code: HERE

To build the zone viewer, open the 'EQNavigation' solution file (it's located in the 'EQNavigation' folder) using Visual Studio, then build and run the project (press 'F5').

You'll be prompted for an output folder (it asks about something not so kosher). Just ignore that bit, since you don't really care about navmesh generation.

Once the GUI is up, Click the 'Choose Zone...' button to open the zone list and select a zone from the zone list to load the geometry. Your zone will then load and render (sorry, it doesn't render textures -- yet!..anyways, it'd be nice if you added such a feature and shared your source code).

Hold right mouse button to pan the camera and W,A,S,D keys to move around. To increase the speed of the camera, hold shift and\or alt.